Disposal Services Authority

Contents

Announcement

The former aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious HM Naval Base Portsmouth today, 7 December 2016, at 0930 bound for Turkey. Following an open competition the Ministry of Defence awarded a recycling contract to a Turkish company LEYAL Ship Recycling Ltd; the company purchased the ship for around £2 million.

A previous competition to seek innovative reuse bids to retain the ship in the UK, with part or all of it developed for heritage purposes, failed to find a suitable bidder. The departure of Illustrious will make way for the arrival in Portsmouth of the first of the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, in 2017.

About the DSA

The Disposal Services Authority (DSA) is the organisation within the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) that has sole authority to dispose of all MOD surplus equipment within the UK and overseas for example aircraft, aircraft spares, ships, boats, river craft and other marine vessels and spares, military and domestic’s vehicles, with the exception of nuclear, domestic waste and infrastructure. The DSA is unique in government, specialising in disposal of surplus equipment.

The DSA mission statement is:

To support defence and other government departments with an agreed effective and efficient disposal and sales service in order to support UK Defence capability.

The organisation is split into the following teams.

Commercial Disposals team

The Commercial Disposal (CD) team is based in Bicester, Oxfordshire. Their primary role is to facilitate the disposals through a network of enabling agreements with private sector contractors (all of who have been acquired through open competition) for the collection, storage, specialist marketing and sales of surplus MOD equipment. The aims of the enabling agreements are to achieve the best financial return for the taxpayer.

The team also deals with private treaty sales or direct tender for high value or items of unique interest. Undertake ship recycling, in line with HMG’s recycling strategy for ship disposal.

The business development team within CD deals with the disposal of surplus equipment for other government departments (OGDs) through the same DSA enabling agreements.

DSA working with other government departments

In addition to addressing all the MOD’s disposal needs, the DSA is also able to provide the same level of asset disposal service to other government departments (OGDs) across the UK. The DSA currently has around 40 OGDs on its books, from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and these include:

various police forces

several fire and rescue services

prison services

elements of the Home Office

public transport organisations

other public sector bodies

OGD customers are able to benefit from all the commercial arrangements set up by the MOD and can which can save them time and money, making use of the DSA’s specialist contractors that have been acquired through open competition. In terms of benefits, OGD customers can be confident that the DSA will manage all elements of their disposals in a professional manner, including:

all security matters (such as de-badging and data wiping)

adherence to all relevant legislation and policy (including those specific to disposals and recycling)

providing a full audit trail of transactional history

the generatation of a financial return for the OGD Customer for item sold by the DSA on its behalf

The entire asset disposal service is managed and monitored by the DSA on behalf of its OGD customers under cover of a Service Level Agreement, and the DSA’s aim is to take away all the challenges and headaches of asset redistribution and recycling by providing a complete disposal service for OGDs UK wide. Our primary objective is to supply an efficient disposal route, be compliant to the appropriate standards with regard to the disposal of whatever material in order to minimise risk and to provide a value added cost effective service by co-ordinating administration of disposals.

Overseas Disposals team

The Overseas Disposal team, part of the DSA’s CD, are responsible for the disposal of all MOD equipment outside the UK. They operate in places like Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and operational theatres to arrange local sales of MOD equipment or, when required, they will assist in assessing the equipment that is required to be shipped back to the UK for disposal.

Capital Equipment Sales team

The Capital Equipment Sales team is based in Abbey Wood Bristol and their primary role is to undertake the sale of surplus capital assets on a ‘government to government’ (G2G) basis maximising the financial return to the Crown, but also supports wider defence and national diplomatic efforts. They have an active role in supporting G2G sales and providing technical support to customer governments. This also includes future spares support and, subject to availability, CES’s Post-Sales Support team may assist these governments and other customers that continue to operate ex-MOD equipment through the provision of spares on repayment terms.

The teams, being based in MOD, Abbey Wood, Bristol are able to work closely with project teams and assist with disposals as part of the Through Life Management Programme (TLMP) for capital equipment.

Equipment for sale

The majority of surplus items and equipment is sold through the DSA’s specialist contractors and details of current stock available can be found at http://www.ex-mod.com/

Such materials includes:

clothing

miscellaneous items

military and domestic vehicles

aircraft spares

naval and marine equipment

medical equipment

equipment from the clearance of British military camps

Direct sales of capital assets, for example aircraft or ships are advertised on the MOD surplus equipment page.

DSA contractors

Each of the DSA contracts have been competed through the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) tender procedures, and are regularly audited against strict contractual obligations, and are compliant with environmental and health and safety regulations. These contracts not only supply a collect-to-dispose service, but also offer a wide range of refurbished items for sale and ensure that the minimum of assets enter landfill.

Ship recycling

You may remember seeing Turner’s famous painting ‘The Fighting Temaraire’, the navy’s decommissioned vessel being towed in 1838 towards the sunset and onto the breaker’s yard. Today MOD’s prime aim is to sell surplus ships for further use. However, where this is not possible, for instance, when ships are no longer seaworthy or only suitable for recycling, the DSA seeks to dispose of the ships in the most environmentally manner ensuring its compliance with its legal responsibilities as a producer of waste.

The DSA is a market leader in the environmentally sound recycling of former Royal Navy warships and Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, recycling 24 vessels between 2008 to 2015 which in turn provides an impressive library of the ship reports detailing final disposal routes for all material generated from the recycling of ships. We strive to set an example to other government ship owners through the recycling of ships that are no longer suitable for further use. The UK Ship Recycling Strategy has established domestic policy, for the recycling of UK government owned ships which the DSA implements in full.

DSA has been implementing this strategy through the award of open competition for the recycling of MOD ships. Once the vessel has been completely recycled the DSA produces a ship report detailing the background and management for the dismantling process, including a final outturn against the Inventory of Hazardous Material (IHM) which is used in conjunction with other vessels’ details to better inform us of the final disposal issues relating to ships.